Had a really cool dream last night where I explained to a dream character how to tell you are dreaming so you can become lucid.

It starts with me first trying to figure out whether I'm in a dream or waking life. This ends up being very difficult and I go back and forth. Just really enjoying how real everything is, but also getting confused. I'm looking at my hands which look perfectly normal and everything is so real but I'm suspecting its a dream and telling the DC "You know this could very well be a dream, but it's tricky. You never know for sure. Like right now. See how real everything is here? You can't tell. But you can look at your hands, see look at mine. Oh, they are normal looking now." Ah, but then we look again a little later. "See all of the fingers" There were maybe 6 or 10, then quite a bit more. There is also some weird slime that appears on them. The DC gets really excited at that point. "O.K. we know that I'm dreaming, but now let's check to see if you are dreaming too. Let me see your hands. You ARE dreaming, see?" But the DC has NO fingers and this makes her freak out. I calm her down.

It was so enjoyable to share the entire experience with someone in the dream and such a long and fantastic lucid dream, but the strange part about it was that I am still not sure whether I was actually lucid. I'm still wondering whether the lucidity was dreamed or not.

Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world? Morpheus

it seems that you are looking for a level of clarity to define lucid, like it needs to be 60 or 80% of normal life to be lucid, but really if you we use the definition of knowing you are dreaming then if you are doing a RC you have achieved this. Sometimes I am lucid for hours and sometimes seconds, if I get into a state where I see patterns from within the dream then I am lucid as I have awareness of the fact I am dreaming. The idea of reality checks falls over a bit if you are in the void and there is nothing at all and therefore nothing to do a reality check against except the fact that you know the place and can only be dreaming if you are there.

Who are you I asked, the reply "dont be silly, we are your daughers" many years before they were born

Peter wrote:it seems that you are looking for a level of clarity to define lucid

Not really, I have lots of very vivid dreams too, very real but with no lucidity. For me, the waking-life conscious thought process is very different from dreams and is absent in non-lucid dreams. That's why LDs are so mind-blowing. I can dream about anything, including being lucid, and doing RCs, talking to DCs about lucid dreaming, etc. But in those dreams, there is no separation between me and the dream. When I am lucid, I am separate from the dream which I guess is an OBE. That's what I consider being lucid: When I can make conscious choices and think rationally about what my body is doing in bed while experiencing the dream which is usually a very real world. There is me and what I'm thinking about and there is the dream that is running it's own separate program at the same time. The only dreams I consider to be lucid are those.

Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world? Morpheus

Same for lucid, it is total awareness of the fact that you are dreaming. I just had the thought that in many of my vivid's when I am doing something, say building some object or looking at a process and have external thoughts but not dream awareness I am really thinking in pictures and involved in the process. For instance I can fully recall last night and I may have been putting thoughts into the dream and interacting with these as simply just thinking. So not lucid at all and not claiming it, but thinking and working on problems in my sleep but with very clear images, interactions and great recall. This is one level up from simply mindless dreaming.

Who are you I asked, the reply "dont be silly, we are your daughers" many years before they were born

Peter wrote:Same for lucid, it is total awareness of the fact that you are dreaming.

Agree, it's total awareness and also total separation between conscious thought process and the dream. The conscious thought involves waking-life awareness, logical thinking, decisions and evaluation. The dream runs in parallel, with or without the awareness/conscious thought process. This is why the whole thing is so amazing and has been really difficult for me to accept when I'm experiencing it. To me, it shows that consciousness exists separately. You can read about it and say "Wow, that sounds interesting" but when you experience it's more like "WTF? How can this be possible? What IS this world I'm in right now?"

There are of course a full spectrum of awareness levels in a dream all the way from total lack of awareness to full lucidity so things are not so black and white, but full lucidity does have unique characteristics and in my experience, involves a distinct consciousness level shift point or what I would call the "aha!" moment.

What I'm beginning to see is that my overall awareness in the non-lucid dreams is becoming greater, closer to lucidity than it was. I'm wondering if yours has developed much more since you've been doing it longer. That would mean more shades of grey, but you still recognize the full lucidity as being distinctly different.

Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world? Morpheus

What I'm beginning to see is that my overall awareness in the non-lucid dreams is becoming greater, closer to lucidity than it was. I'm wondering if yours has developed much more since you've been doing it longer. That would mean more shades of grey, but you still recognize the full lucidity as being distinctly different.

I think this is what is confusing about the dreaming of being lucid, the non-lucid dreams are closer and closer to lucid but they are not lucid. The only difference is awareness. It is a major difference but does not always make the dreams any clearer. I had a long set of dreams last night, and on going to bed I was thinking about this dreaming of being lucid. The first lot of dreams in the early part of the night ( I dream all night and it makes little difference if it is early evening or late morning) I was in a dream and looking for a place to stay. It got to the part where a man told me there was a room and I could have it, he was on the second floor so I said I would be up there soon. I simply rose from the ground, floated up to the second floor and then gently landed on the balcony and got my room key. I no aha moment but did decide to float up and that was a choice I made not one that happened and I was a victim of. I dont call this lucid but it is very common to carry out these sorts of acts so the lucids and non-lucids are coming very close together. I will only call lucids when I am aware for the sake of clarity. I would also not call this dream as dreaming about lucid dreaming either. I was in and out of being lucid for a couple of hours and had a lovely set of dreams floating around an old city and exploring a market, haggling with vendors and even met 2 other dreamers, we played around causing all sorts of mischief for a while.

Who are you I asked, the reply "dont be silly, we are your daughers" many years before they were born

I completely understand, lucidinthesky. I have dreamt of lucidity without having ever really "achieved" it in a dream. It can get to the point where I'm actually longing for the sensation of total "separation" and lucidity and I'm dreaming of it and aware of wanting it but it doesn't happen. All of it is mind-blowing, although frustrating. Our minds are incredible!

Intrepid wrote:I completely understand, lucidinthesky. I have dreamt of lucidity without having ever really "achieved" it in a dream. It can get to the point where I'm actually longing for the sensation of total "separation" and lucidity and I'm dreaming of it and aware of wanting it but it doesn't happen. All of it is mind-blowing, although frustrating. Our minds are incredible!

Keep at it and don't give up! It's worth any efforts you put in and the some.

As I said in another post, if I had only known what is was like sooner, I would have worked harder and had my first a lot sooner. Just had the best yet early this morning: total separation, full lucidity. It's mind-blowing how perfectly real a dream can be, just like being in a real place in waking life.

Good luck and let us know when you have your first.

Last edited by lucidinthe sky on 12 Sep 2012 17:26, edited 2 times in total.

Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world? Morpheus